Of Monsters and Märchen: Figures and Forms through the Märchen Genre by TAYLOR DUNCAN BUDDE B.A., University of Minnesota, 2013 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures 2018 ii This thesis entitled: Of Monsters and Märchen: Figures and Forms through the Märchen Genre written by Taylor Duncan Budde has been approved for the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures (Dr Mathias Nordvig, Chair) (Dr Lauren Stone) (Dr Ann Schmiesing) Date The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. iii Budde, Taylor Duncan (M.A., German Studies) Of Monsters and Märchen: Figures and Forms Through the Märchen Genre Thesis directed by Assistant Professor Mathias Nordvig ABSTRACT This thesis explores the relationship between the Märchen genre and monsters, arguing that a key component of both is a mutable nature that allows them to shapeshift or transform in such a way that destabilizes imposed limitations to each of their forms, and the ability to transform the world around them. Specifically, it analyzes three Märchen that contain shapeshifting monstrous figures which are thematically connected to the genre. The first part of the thesis looks at Ludwig Tieck’s Der blonde Eckbert, as both critique of the Enlightenment fairy tale’s focus on rationality and how Tieck represents in the figure of die Alte the ability for art to affect reality. Secondly, it examines Hans Christian Andersen’s Den lille Havfrue as a representation of the Danish social system and its conception of the way to gain immortality though works. Lastly, this thesis analyzes the Grimms’ editorial practice in conjunction with Hänsel und Gretel arguing that they have created a hybrid genre of Märchen that exists uneasily between distinct categories like the figure die Hexe found within it. iv CONTENTS Introduction..................................................................................................................................................1 1. Crossing Boundaries in Der blonde Eckbert................................................................................................4 1.1. Bertha’s Märchen....................................................................................................................................6 1.2. Die Alte Breaks Through...................................................................................................................11 2. Andersen and the Monster’s Märchen.......................................................................................................16 2.1. Monstrous Misinterpretation and Unintelligibility........................................................................17 2.2. Transgression of Boundaries and the Possibilities for Immortality.............................................22 3. The Buchmärchen of the Brothers Grimm................................................................................................29 3.1. Editing as Practice..............................................................................................................................30 3.2. From Brüderchen und Schwesterchen to Hänsel und Gretel: Shapeshifting die Hexe..............................34 Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................42 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................................................45 Introduction “Wie wundervoll sind diese Wesen, Die, was nicht deutbar, dennoch deuten, Was nie geschrieben wurde, lesen, Verworrenes beherrschend binden Und Wege noch im Ewig-Dunkeln finden.”1 There is something monstrous about the Märchen genre.2 Beyond housing an innumerable variety of monsters, Märchen themselves have the capacity to terrify, inspire awe, and suggest previously unimaginable alternatives to gain a “happily ever after.” They are repositories for communal fears and utopic hopes expressed through the lens of individual storytellers, which have a tenacious resistance to being confined or easily interpreted. The focus of this study is on this last aspect of monsters and Märchen. Both seem to have an intrinsic propensity to shapeshift and transform, either by their powers or through the will of their creators. It is this mutable nature that allows them to on one hand resist boundaries of any sort, whether they be formulaic, locational, or realistic, and on the other be so easily adapted to new contexts. Many scholars outline these aspects in theoretical discussions of what constitutes Märchen and monsters which uncannily overlap. Jeffery Cohen discusses the birth of monsters as arising out of “a certain cultural moment—of a time, a feeling, and a place” who go to signify “something other than itself” and always changing.3 Along similar lines Max Lüthi claims that “The individual compilers cast the fairy tale in the garb of their time” and that “a significant, constantly reoccurring process is at work: danger and redemption, paralysis and rejuvenation, 1 Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Der Tor und der Tod (Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1913) 32. 2 Throughout this thesis I use the terms Märchen and fairy tale broadly as umbrella terms, in the sense that instead of demarcating and defining the multiple different types of Märchen (for example Volksmärchen, Kunstmärchen, Zaubermärchen etc.) I will let Märchen represent all of them. I will occasionally use a more specific version of the term when necessary. 3 Jeffery Cohen, “Monster Culture (Seven Theses).” In Monster Theory: Reading Culture, ed. by Jeffrey Cohen (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 4. 2 death and resurrection.”4 David Gilmore notes that monsters are fascinating to us because they “observe no limits, and respect no boundaries” opening up new ways of thinking about the conditions which gave rise to them in the first place.5 “Metamorphosis” Maria Tatar argues “is central to the fairy tale, which shows us figures endlessly shifting their shapes, crossing borders, and undergoing change” affecting not just the form itself, but also its audience.6 Marina Warner ties both the figure of the monster and form of the Märchen together writing “Shape-shifting is one of the fairy tales dominant and characteristic wonders…More so than the presence of fairies, the moral function, the imagined antiquity and oral anonymity of the ultimate source, and the happy ending…metamorphosis defines the fairy tale.”7 Shapeshifting and a power to undergo and cause transformations are essential elements for both the Märchen genre and monsters. As this thesis argues there is a distinct parallel between their respective forms, I will also parallel their definitions. Both monsters and Märchen are forms that incorporate and embody the fears, anxieties, desires, and utopic hopes of the ones who created them. Through their capacity to shapeshift, they paradoxically are forms filled with dangerous potential delimiting spaces of normalcy through their otherness which once questioned, threatens to destabilize cultural or societal structures, yet defy any attempt to be limited or placed with boundaries of any sort themselves. This creates difficulties for any singular approach of interpretation, as being unable to fully understand a nature that is meant to 4 Max Lüthi, Once Upon a Time: On the Nature of Fairy Tales, trans. Lee Chadeayne and Paul Gottwald (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 34. 5 David Gilmore, Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors (Philadelphia: University of Penn Press, 2003), 12. 6 Maria Tatar, “Why Fairy Tales Matter: The Performative and the Transformative,” Western Folklore 69, no. 1 (Winter 2010): 55. 7 Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1994), XIX-XX. 3 ambiguous. Because of this they also possess a revelatory nature that opens alternative ways of thinking and challenges the understanding of the world around us. This thesis will thus examine three separate Märchen and the ways their composers represent fears and desires in both monsters and the genre of Märchen as shapeshifters, and transform and reconstitute the forms itself.8 First, it will examine Ludwig Tieck’s Der blonde Eckbert as a text that critiques the Enlightenment’s focus on rationality, which relegates the realm of the fantastic into the background reducing the state of art to a shadow that no longer has the ability to affect reality, before embodying in the form of die Alte the Märchen genre itself as a shapeshifter that destroys the boundary between the fantastic and the real bringing them together. Secondly, this thesis looks at Hans Christian Andersen’s Den lille Havfrue as representing the Danish social system Andersen belonged within, turning what it refuses to understand into monsters, and how the monster can overcome its status to gain immortality. Lastly, it analyzes the foundation and enactment of the Brothers Grimms’ editorial practice in conjunction with the tale Hänsel und Gretel arguing that they have created a hybrid genre of Märchen based in an oral tradition and infused with their own